"O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what ye do." [Al-maeda ,8]

After the downing of the Russian Jet when it violated the Turkish airspace, there seems to be a lot of cold war style propaganda against Turkey and its role in Syria. It seems there is a deliberate attempt to take down Turkey using the situation in Syria.

If a liberal and democratic Turkey goes down then it will empower groups like ISIS and create chaos in Middle East and surrounding regions including Europe. Erdogan is not perfect like any other leader of the world but it is stupid to think that he is in bed with ISIS even after ISIS killed hundreds in Ankara blasts. ISIS considers all democratic leaders and their voters as infidels and worthy of being killed including leaders in Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc so it will be really stupid for anyone to support a group which is committed to to kill you, takeover your countries and destroy your system. ISIS is a product of hatred and chaos created after 2003 Invasion, they have no ideological grounds except revenge, hatred and ignorance. They started as a splinter group of Al-Qaida and later joined by Saddam loyalists who were full of vengeance.

If NATO or Russian led alliance want to eliminate ISIS then they need to stop playing super power games in Syria like they played in Afghanistan which resulted in the creation of Al-Qaida type groups.

Before accusing others, Russia first needs to give answers about the downed Malaysian civilian jet and the way they are destabilizing Ukraine.

This whole Syrian game is fishy with no clarity of approach on how to tackle ISIS or Daesh. At the moment Pakistan and China both are doing the right thing by staying out of it despite their own allies pushing them into this mess.

Turkey made a mistake of jumping into this Syrian mess like Pakistan made by jumping into the Afghan mess. Now they are facing similar pressures to do more or accusations of being in bed with the terrorists like Pakistan was facing even after losing a lot of civilians and soldiers in this war.

Many Pakistanis seem to be falling for this game too, mainly due to sectarian or left/right political alignment. Instead of bringing sectarianism from the conflicts between a theocracy like Iran or a family dynasty like KSA, we need to go more towards liberal Muslim democracies like Turkey, Indonesia, Azerbaijan and I hope Pakistan will be in the same or better league too. Things are not perfect in these countries but they seem to go in the right direction with the establishment of democratic processes, strong opposition culture and strong media.

Unfortunately, even in 21st century, we are stuck with theocracies, dictators like Assad or Al-Sissi and backward monarchies.

The regional control freaks like Saudi/UAE Monarchies, Iranian Theocracy, Israeli Apartheid regime and Syrian Dictatorship felt threatened by the rise of Muslim Brotherhood in the region. It is interesting to see that these have their own conflicting interests but rise of a genuine movement was their common target.

These forces are in conflict with each other in Syria, Palestine and other parts of the region but for a rising democracy of middle east under the leadership an elected president Morsi, they decided to directly or indirectly collude with each other.

This shows big challenges for pro-democracy forces in the region especially if they belong to Islamic movements.

We wish best of luck to people who are opposing a military coup. For those who think that the anti-Morsi crowd in Tahrir square exercised their democratic right by demanding a coup and their large number provides moral justification of the coup. My question is: What about the millions who voted for him? It means anyone who can gather a big crowd on nations capital can practically impose their will on people living in other parts of the country. Egyptians will soon realize where they are heading and what fraud happened with them. The victory they achieved 2 years ago is lost as the control is in the hands of same forces now (just different faces). They should have waited for 3 years for next elections instead of calling military or accepting military coup.What about the millions who voted for him? It means anyone who can gather a big crowd on nations capital can practically impose their will on people living in other parts of the country. Egyptians will soon realize where they are heading and what fraud happened with them.

The victory pro-democracy and pro-freedom people achieved 2 years ago is lost as the control is in the hands of same forces now (just different faces). The fascist crowd should have waited for 3 years for next elections instead of calling military or accepting military coup.

Office of the Assistant to the President on Foreign Relations & International Cooperation

___________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release, July 3, 2013

As I write these lines I am fully aware that these may be the last lines I get to post on this page.

For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: Military coup.

It has been two and a half years after a popular revolution against a dictatorship that had strangled and drained Egypt for 30 years.

That revolution restored a sense of hope and fired up Egyptians’ dreams of a future in which they could claim for themselves the same dignity that is every human being’s birthright.

On Januray 25 I stood in Tahrir square. My children stood in protest in Cairo and Alexandria. We stood ready to sacrifice for this revolution. When we did that, we did not support a revolution of elites. And we did not support a conditional democracy. We stood, and we still stand, for a very simple idea: given freedom, we Egyptians can build institutions that allow us to promote and choose among all the different visions for the country. We quickly discovered that almost none of the other actors were willing to extend that idea to include us.

You have heard much during the past 30 months about ikhwan excluding all others. I will not try to convince you otherwise today. Perhaps there will come a day when honest academics have the courage to examine the record.

Today only one thing matters. In this day and age no military coup can succeed in the face of sizeable popular force without considerable bloodshed. Who among you is ready to shoulder that blame?

I am fully aware of the Egyptian media that has already attempted to frame ikhwan for every act of violence that has taken place in Egypt since January 2011. I am sure that you are tempted to believe this. But it will not be easy.

There are still people in Egypt who believe in their right to make a democratic choice. Hundreds of thousands of them have gathered in support of democracy and the Presidency. And they will not leave in the face of this attack. To move them, there will have to be violence. It will either come from the army, the police, or the hired mercenaries. Either way there will be considerable bloodshed. And the message will resonate throughout the Muslim World loud and clear: democracy is not for Muslims.

I do not need to explain in detail the worldwide catastrophic ramifications of this message. In the last week there has been every attempt to issue a counter narrative that this is just scaremongering and that the crushing of Egypt’s nascent democracy can be managed. We no longer have the time to engage in frivolous academic back and forth. The audience that reads this page understands the price that the world continues to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Egypt is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq. Its symbolic weight and resulting impact is far more significant. Last night, demonstrators at Cairo University supporting the President were fired upon using automatic weapons. Twenty people died and hunderds were injured.
There are people in Egypt and around the world that continue to try to justify the calls for early presidential elections because of the large numbers of demonstrators and the validity of their grievances.

Let me be very clear. The protesters represent a wide spectrum of Egyptians and many of them have genuine, valid grievances. President Morsy’s approval rating is down.

Now let me be equally clear. Since January and again in the last couple of weeks the President has repeatedly called for national dialog. Equally repeatedly, the opposition refused to participate. Increasingly, the so-called liberals of Egypt escalated a rhetoric inviting the military to become the custodians of government in Egypt. The opposition has steadfastly declined every option that entails a return to the ballot box.

Yesterday, the President received an initiative from an alliance of parties supporting constitutional legitimacy. He discussed it with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense and all three of them agreed that it presented an excellent path for Egypt out of its current impasse. The initiative called for a full change of cabinet, a prime minister acceptable to all, changing the public prosecutor, agreement on constitutional amendments, and a reconciliation commission.

And let us also be clear. The President did not have to offer all these concessions. In a democracy, there are simple consequences for the situation we see in Egypt: the President loses the next election or his party gets penalized in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Anything else is mob rule.

In the last year we have been castigated by foreign governments, foreign media, and rights groups whenever our reforms in the areas of rights and freedoms did not keep pace with the ambitions of some or adhere exactly to the forms used in other cultures. The silence of all of those voices with an impending military coup is hypocritical and that hypocrisy will not be lost on a large swathe of Egyptians, Arabs and Muslims.

Many have seen fit in these last months to lecture us on how democracy is more than just the ballot box. That may indeed be true. But what is definitely true is that there is no democracy without the ballot box.

It is remarkable to see the colors of hypocrisy in different societies. One such example can be seen in the home of world’s so called the best democracy in the world i.e. United Kingdom. On one hand they preach concepts of freedom and democracy to the whole world and even bomb them to achieve these objectives and on the other hand they punish teenage boy Azhar Ahmed for just writing some facebook message against the soldiers of British Army.

We have been hearing some news about the massacre of Muslim minority community going on Burma but due to restrictions on media, not much is coming out. There have been some fake images circulating in the social media but that doesn’t make the real issue fake. Tariq A. Al-Maeena has tried to put some light in his article written for Saudi Gazette.

———————————————————————————————Burmese Muslims under threat of extinction

While most of the media’s attention is focused on Syria, the state of the euro or the US presidential elections, very little is being said about state sponsored ethnic cleansing in Myanmar or Burma. Perhaps it is because the unfortunate victims happen to be Muslims and there are no strategic gains to be garnered by allying with them.

Ten Burmese Muslims on their way to a spiritual place of worship last month were attacked by a large number of Rakhine Buddhists who butchered and killed them with knives. Five others escaped. One man from the village where the attack took place said a mob of ethnic Rakhines set upon the bus carrying the pilgrims and carried out the massacre.

“More than a hundred people beat and killed those people. The residents even torched the bus,” he said, adding that the police arrived but were unable to control the baying crowd. “There are not many people at the scene now, only dead bodies on the road. The senior town residents are trying to comfort the people,” the man added. The Rakhine Buddhists are also threatening Muslims from the other towns of Rakhine state with the same fate.

There was a lot of fanfare and noise by the West on the repressions by the military regime against its people. The pressure by Western governments intensified in the form of sanctions against the regime which resulted in the generals allowing a small amount of democracy to creep in.

This also brought notable Burmese activists working for democracy such as Aung San Suu Kyi to the front pages and television screens and calls for the continued democratization of the country. Amidst this fanfare of publicity, the plight of the minority Muslims somehow failed to attract any headlines or generate any sanctions.

A government statement following the massacre of the Muslims last month which was published in the New Light of Myanmar added more fuel to the burning embers when it warned against “anarchic and lawless” acts, but referred to the victims as “kalar” (blackie), a racial slur used for persons of Indian appearance.

Dozens of people marched in Yangon to protest growing anti-Muslim violence and accused the government of stoking the flames of sectarian tensions. Political leaders and civil society groups appealed for calm and called on the government to issue an apology.

“The newspapers should not stoke this conflict. Are they trying to suggest that one race is more violent than another?” said an MP from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party. The state media has since issued a retraction for the use of racially offensive language in its official appeal for calm and urged readers to refer to the victims as “Islamic residents”.

In the past, the Nobel Prize winner and democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy have gone to great lengths to avoid discussing the country’s Muslim minority, especially the Rohingyas, for fear of alienating many of their supporters. But following the brutal slayings, which was one more chapter of targeted violence against the Muslim minority, she was compelled to speak out.

Finally breaking her silence, she joined the fray in the debate by calling for the perpetrators to be held to account in accordance with the rule of law. She added that “the majority of the people in a society should have sympathy for the minority.”

“Maybe some people would not like me saying this but I have to say what I must say regardless of whether they like it or not. When you are the majority in a society, then you are the strong party. If you are strong then you must be generous and sympathetic. I would like to see all people in Burma get along with each other regardless of their religion and ethnicity.”

This pattern of violence against the Muslim minority should be brought to light. The safety and security of all minorities in any society must be guaranteed.

World governments and international human rights organizations that were so focused on the democratization of the Burmese in the past must now focus their attention on saving one of the country’s minorities in the present.

Below is an article by a Syrian journalist who has put light on the lives people of Syria are living in fear. Bashar al Asad like his father is a tyrant and he seems to be the modern version of Nazi leadership. People should raise their voices all over the world and support the freedom and justice loving people in any manner they can.

Whether it’s a call on my phone or at the door, I feel scared to death. I mentally prepare myself for the worst, assuming that “they” are here to take me.

But then, when I find a friend at the door or a homeless compatriot asking for food, I realise that it is not my day yet, it is someone else’s.

Despite being unusually lucky, my nightmares don’t end. I rather prepare myself to deal with a situation when Bashar’s sleuths would come to pick me up for writing about the misery of Syrian taxpayers and democracy-lovers.

Regardless of our terrible conditions, we do greet each other daily with ‘sabah al-khair’ or good morning but with little hope for the same.

When I hear stories of torture and disfigured bodies of the missing Syrians and journalists alike, my only prayer to Allah remains, “I am ready for it but ease it on me and my people please.”

We write with pen names and log on the Internet using proxies, thinking we are safe. The reality is otherwise. My missing journalist friends and bloggers had no time to say bye to their loved ones inside the very home they were abducted from. Al-mokhabarat or intelligence agents, just plucked them away, mostly in the dark of the night.

They may discover me sooner or later but I make it a point to erase all my cell phone logs of call and text messages, clear my browser history and empty my laptop’s trash bin. Thinking that I might have forgotten something, sometimes I repeat the act many times a night.

Of late, my personal fear of being kidnapped by government sleuths has been overshadowed by a big, bloodier development. Every day, I see uploaded YouTube videos of the best of Soviet and Russian arsenal knocking down bustling neighborhoods first in Dara’a, then Hama and now Homs.

While I still fear the footsteps of sleuths on my door, I am not being searched as minutely as before.

Instead of looking out for activists and undercover journalists, Bashar’s military is wiping out entire cities from world maps, over suspicions of treason against the Alawite regime.

What started as massacre has duly transformed into genocide. My editors abroad insist on sending my stories with real names, concrete evidence and versions from both sides. I have been in double jeopardy since the first eight months of the uprising when the world only knew about Tahrir square kind of protests.

I, sometimes, wonder if the top-notch media watchdog bodies really know what a faceless and nameless journalist in Syria goes through, at the hands of sleuths as well as the very editors known as gatekeepers.

When making a phone call can risk not only yours and your families’ lives but also the person answering the phone, calling a government source is simply suicidal. Even the most naïve journalist here knows that cellular and landline phone companies are not only owned by the regime’s front-men but also bugged and monitored.

Simultaneously, Syria is a busy place for journalists where one cannot choose which story angle to focus on any given day i.e. massacres in Homs, protests in Damascus and Idlib, Russian FM’s visit to Bashar, or statements from Washington echoing only fake promises.

But in the end the choice won’t be mine! The media company decides which one suits its agenda and its geopolitical context. Mostly, the easy bet is to bank on the wire service, ignoring the at-risk on-ground journalist who for them is a mere ‘stringer’!

I felt proud of my profession when I first saw stories by foreign journalists covering Syria from their high risk abodes and makeshift media centers. Though the world would not have believed a Syrian journalist like me for the Bab Amar massacre or siege of Homs but I hope they won’t ignore the outsiders’ testimony.

The natural but tragic death of Anthony Shadid, a Lebanon-born journalist for The New York Times, weighed very heavy on Syrian people’s hearts and the battered country’s image. Syria was referred to as home of death.

Besides dozens if not hundreds of slain Syrian journalists, the uprising has claimed two French media-men, and the one and only Marie Colvin died in more familiar way. Their heartrending deaths came in solidarity with local fellow professionals whose names and faces may be known when the tyrant falls and conscience rules in Syria.

Unluckily, I have many pen names for it is hard to write with a real one. Death of Marie Colvin was personally embarrassing to me. Should I still use pen names when my star colleagues are writing with their warm blood?

I am a single woman with no liabilities except a widowed mother and siblings. One simple story with my real name appearing on an Arabic language blog or English-language website has greater probability of leading sleuths to my home.

Now even my family rarely knows which pen name I use and where in the world, my work publishes. Not that I don’t trust my family but the regime’s four decades of fear can easily cause a Freudian slip.

A year ago, I proudly showed off my byline in international dailies but now we are writing for our lives and not for pride.

I rarely get internet access good enough to open my emails and send my stories in time. I must admit that overall depressing conditions too result in my missing deadlines. Ironically, stories featuring Syrians’ bloodbath are never stale and the desk accepts them more often.

When I work on my laptop, my siblings and mother spy on me to see what I am doing or writing. My eldest sister advised me last September, “I can’t stop a journalist from writing but she should not forget the fate her younger brothers may face if they (mokhabarat) find out.”

One of my university fellows was picked up for writing a blog about a missing seven-year-old in Dara’a. Her brother went to a police station to lodge a report but never returned home. Three weeks later, their mother was asked to receive her son’s body from the same police office. She not only got the body of her 20-year-old son but also discovered the disfigured corpse of her blogger daughter.

Earlier, I hoped to change the world’s opinion with my writings but now, I am only recording testimonies of massacres and detailing current history.

Long after they have taken me to die in their dark cells, my stories will serve as credible evidence to try Bashar and his advisors for crimes against humanity.

Like journalism, we are learning survival techniques on our own, the hard way. Whenever a couple of us sit together away from our parents and the listening walls, we talk about the best ways in dealing with the worst.

I usually tell my colleagues, “Why do you think they would wait for us to admit or defend ourselves. Our charge-sheets are already there with no room for defense or discussion . . . Agents we are! . . . Agents of change!”

Maryam Hasan is a young journalist, whose family struggled against Hafiz Al-Assad’s tyrannical rule and policies. She is using a pen-name due to security reasons.

Transparency International Pakistan says Gilani tenure has given a loss of Rs 8,500 billions in corruption so far. Still nincompoos and corrupts in government expect people to pay taxes like “responsible” citizens. Yes, people like us who pay taxes despite corruption are responsible and they are responsible for beeing ignorant.

People should go for a collective boycott of taxes and take back the country from these evil ruling elite.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has lost an unbelievably high amount, more than Rs8,500 billion (Rs8.5 trillion or US$94 billion), in corruption, tax evasion and bad governance during the last four years of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s tenure, Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) claims.

The TIP advisor, Adil Gillani, told The News that the real impact of corruption in the country’s economy is far more than what is generally estimated or what is formally uncovered. He believes that Pakistan does not need even a single penny from the outside world if it effectively checks the menace of corruption and ensures good governance.

It is generally believed that the four years of the present regime under Gilani had been the worst in terms of corruption and bad governance in the country’s history. Past records of corruption were broken and Pakistan started rising in the ranks of the most corrupt nations of the world.

There has been no check on corruption as the anti-corruption institutions like the National Accountability Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency instead of checking corruption have been siding with the corrupt.

These institutions have been helping the corrupt to get off the hook by distorting and mutilating the evidence in favour of the influential accused.
Adil Gillani, the TIP representative, who too has been haunted by the government during these years for producing corruption reports, explained that the TIP pointed out corruption of Rs390 billion in 2008, Rs450 billion in 2009, Rs825 billion in 2010 and Rs1,100 billion in 2011 under the present regime. The total of these identified cases of corruption is Rs2,765 billion.
In addition to this, he explained the following:

The minister of finance of the present regime himself confirmed corruption in FBR of over Rs500 billon per year, which makes the total Rs2,000 billion; Auditor General of Pakistan pointed out Rs315 billion corruption in 2010; Public Accounts Committee recovered Rs115 billion in 30 months till 2011; circular debt is Rs190 million; KESC was given Rs55 billion illegal benefits per annum since 2008; state-owned enterprises like PSO, PIA, Pakistan Steel, Railways, SSGC, SNGC are eating away Rs150-300 billion per annum; tax to GDP ratio in 2008 was 11%, which in 2011 has reduced to 9.1% instead of being increased.

Gillani explained that Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product is worth US$175 billion and in the light of this the drop of 1.9% in the tax GDP means annual loss of US$ 3.3 billion. This confirms that FBR is losing Rs300 million per annum, which is annual additional loss since 2008 and stands at Rs1,200 billon in four years
The TIP adviser added that India’s tax-GDP ratio is 18%, and at that rate, Pakistan’s tax evasion/corruption in FBR is 9% of $175 billion, which is US$15.5 billion per year, i.e. Rs1,400 billion per year.

It is worth mentioning here that it is not only the Transparency International but there have been different international bodies including the World Bank and world capitals, which have been showing their concern over rising trend of corruption in Pakistan under the Gilani’s regime. It was mounting corruption and extremely bad governance, which even dithered the outside world to offer cash to Pakistan during 2010 and 2011 floods, which devastated different parts of Pakistan and affected millions of people.
At home the corruption became a fashion in such a shameless manner that even the cabinet ministers started openly pointing fingers at each other and even at the highest levels including the prime minister. Some even approached the Supreme Court but despite all this, corruption remained the hallmark of the present regime, which instead of curbing it started defending it in the name of democracy.